


Belief

by Saltlordofold



Series: Tales of the King [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-05-08
Packaged: 2020-02-28 12:37:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18756583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saltlordofold/pseuds/Saltlordofold
Summary: There's more than one way the encounter with Taliesen in Denerim could have ended for Aedan and Zevran."The dagger in his hand drips red on the ground, wet and shiny like a tongue. Zevran takes a few steps towards the Warden, heels silently sinking into blood-soaked dirt."





	Belief

 

 

 

There's a hand in the small of Zevran's back and parted lips on his, warm and rough. A tongue, experienced. Sweet. Honeyed both in touch as well as in flavour: Taliesen's mouth always tasted like the candied orange peels he so liked to chew.

“Zev...”

It's a hiss, more than a call. A rattle, the deadly kind. Zevran is not certain Aedan meant to speak the shortened version of his name – the sweet moniker he had elected for him, like a gift, chosen – or if he just hasn't managed sound through the full of it. No telling, really, in his condition.

There's blood gathering at the corners of his mouth and his breathing makes noises it really ought not to.

“Look at him crawl,” Taliesen sneers.

He leans away, but his hand doesn't leave Zevran's body, as if unwilling to break off his touch on it after being kept apart for so long. He tilts his head, gazing intently at the man on the ground. Taliesen often looks at things as such, Zevran remembers, pain and tears of others chief among those: clinically, almost. With the curiosity of an outsider fascinated to learn more of some strange local custom, yet unable to partake. With the tip of his boot, the Crow nudges at the edge of the pool that is reaching them from the many gaping slits in Aedan's chest and back.

“A man of such high birth,” he murmurs, head still craned sideways, “Of such old blood.”

The puddle licks his sole, and he drags it back, painting a darker streak on the dry dirt of the Denerim back alley. Tainted blood. Corrupted. He probably thinks he ought to be careful with it, not knowing that a simple touch is not enough to spread the sickness. His eyes turn back to Zevran.

“Has he crawled for you before, my love?” Taliesen asks, and sounds concerned, as he does. Considerate.

Zevran smiles, then laughs.

“He has,” he admits.

The dagger in his hand drips red on the ground, wet and shiny like a tongue. Zevran takes a few steps towards the Warden, heels silently sinking into blood-soaked dirt. He knows better than to fear the Taint like this: he has learned its ways by now.

“He was eager for it, too,” he keeps saying, looking down, “Lack of habit, perhaps. You know well-born men as such: unusual things feel alluring to them.”

Taliesen snorts.

“How they do,” he says.

He grabs Zevran's waist again, pulls him away from the dying man and closer to him. His hand frames his face, thumb dragging slow and steady on his lower lip.

“I for one would much rather have another taste of the familiar,” he murmurs, and his mouth is sweeter still than it felt before.

Zevran gives in fully to it. When he closes his eyes, it's as if he can feel it all through the kiss: sun-warmed ocre walls, the bluest of seas, the faint smell of fish, figs, and orange blossoms. Can a place mean a person and a person, a place? Perhaps yes, because Zevran is suddenly reminded again to the wet stench of Denerim by a low groan, and the the sound of a leg skidding under a body.

Taliesen blows a short, exasperated sigh.

"Really?" he gripes, “Still?”

Barely leaning back, he addresses Aedan over Zevran's shoulder, in Common, this time.

"Just lay down," he admonishes, "Let it happen. It will be easier that way." 

"Zev..." Aedan rasps again, as if he hadn't heard him. 

Numerous stabs have not been enough to break his will to fight, it seems. Not that Zevran expected any less from him, but this is taking even longer than he thought it would. The wound on Aedan's right side is the one inexorably killing him, though: Zevran has slipped his blade in between the Warden's ribs there, to be sure to reach somewhere fatal, and judging by how steadily blood streams out of the gash, he has not missed. 

Still, being Aedan, Aedan fights.

“Don't do this,” he mutters, a pitiful sound, as he somehow wills himself to lift on his elbows and start dragging himself Zevran's way again.

His skin is greying fast and covered in a slick sheen of sweat. Zevran can hear the wet gurgle his chest makes every time he miraculously manages to inhale. The dagger drips. 

Why won't he let go? Taliesen rolls his eyes.

"It's already done, dog-lord," he sighs, “You are only making this harder on yourself.”

Aedan ignores him again. It's as if Taliesen has never been there to him, this whole time. His face lifts and Zevran feels odd, all of the sudden. Aedan's eyes have trouble staying open, but he's still looking for his gaze. He's probably as good as blind, by then, yet still he searches. 

“I believed,” he slurs, blood dripping down his chin and into the ground under him, “In us.”

“Then you are a fool,” Zevran hears a voice answer, before realizing it's his own.

He walks to Aedan, although he doesn't remember deciding to. Taliesen does the same, then kneels at the man's side. His knees sink into blood, uncaring, this time. He has that look on him again.

“To live in such a world and still keep yourself so heedless...” he murmurs, head tilted like a scavenger bird, and eyes just as blank and beady.

He grabs Aedan's hair, hard – his oh-so-soft curls, _no, don't touch them_ – and yanks his head backwards.

“That's just asking to get yourself buggered,” Taliesen finishes with a chuckle.

Zevran hears himself through a puppet's ears as he laughs along, watches himself through a puppet's eyes as he spits on Aedan's face. 

He doesn't seem to even feel it. His eyes are still looking for his, although it's clear that at this point they can see nothing at all.

_Why won't he let go?_

The dagger shines in Taliesen's hand. 

Rinna writhes. She's strong, stronger than most people, but Taliesen is stronger and holds her in place. The blade looks like a silver necklace as it wraps around her throat.

 _“Zevran, please!”_ she sobs, _“Believe me!”_

She screams, but Aedan doesn't. 

_“You have to believe me!”_

She fights back, but Aedan is limp, now. Taliesen's blade draws an elegant, red curve under his chin. Blood foams scarlet in his mouth just like it did in Rinna's.

__

_“Believe me.”_

__

Usually, Zevran wakes up in silence, but that night, he gasps.

He extends this arm to the side, reflexively – crazy how fast habits can build even in such a short amount of time – and the pang of panic he feels in finding the space beside him empty is sharp enough to surprise even him. 

“Zev'?”

Relief is just one among many emotions Zevran feels flooding him as he watches Aedan's face, bathed in flickering firelight, turned up to him in concern from the ground he's sitting on. He's bundled up with his dog in front of the fireplace, beside the bed, curls wild and sleep-shirt hanging loosely off one of his round shoulders, a few scrolls of parchment laid out on the rug in front of him. Zevran smiles, as he pushes himself up against the bed-frame. A small chuckle raises to his lips, meant at himself, at this most uncharacteristic fretting of his. Waking up alone should be no cause for alarm, at this point: it's no news the Taint gives Aedan restless sleep, and that he often prefers to wander about rather than to lie down keeping Zevran awake with his trashing. Perhaps a barrier as well, that laugh, a shield to keep at bay the still-clear images of his dream? He usually needs nothing of the sort, but tonight... 

Zevran pushes a strand of hair off his face, feeling raw, and aware he looks it. Tonight, somehow, things are different.

Aedan raises to make his way to him. He has to disentangle his legs from the dog's own limbs to do so, and the big hound rolls over with just one, miffed huff. Spoiled beast, but he deserves it, doesn't he? After all the hardships of life on the road, Zevran can't blame the poor thing for clutching to comfort whenever it's in his grasp. Coming from him, that would be pretty rich, actually.

“Love?”

Aedan kneels by the bedside, leaning over Zevran as one would over a sick child. Zevran is neither one of those things, and to be honest, wouldn't have known the feeling when he was, either. But Aedan's cheek is as warm as always in the palm of his hand as he cups it, and his fingers strong and rough to the touch when he entangles them in his, and as feelings go, this one is really not that bad.

“Are you alright?” Aedan asks, and Zevran can just chuckle again.

Usually, this scene plays the other way around, with Aedan gasping awake in an icy sweat, muttering of blood, dragons and black blades, and Zevran pressing himself to him, finding his gaze and holding it there as his Warden fights his way back to him. Tonight, though, even if Zevran's breath needs no steadying, it seems that there might be other parts of him that do. With the flat of his hand, he drags a long caress right across Aedan's throat, slow and deliberate, from one side to the other. His skin is rough with stubble there, and under it, blood flows in healthy, steady pumps. Zevran counts a few of them, just for the bliss of it, before letting his fingers continue their way to the other side of that warm expanse. Once he reaches the end of his journey, Zevran gently toys with the earring Aedan has taken to wearing at all times, even at night. Thumbing the smooth curve of it, Zevran thinks it has never looked prettier than it does now, gleaming low and warm in the firelight against the copper of Aedan's skin. 

“I am now,” Zevran answers, almost honest.

Humming softly, Aedan dips his eyes and kisses the inside of his palm. 

“Good,” he whispers.

That one kiss turns to a dozen, a dozen to a hundred, and after that hundred Zevran has lost count. He's wrapped up in Aedan's arms by the time they're done, face nudged against his shoulder, hands buried in his hair. The silver amulet is pressed against his lips, metal warmed by the heat of his Warden as if it itself were a living thing. He can almost believe both of them are safe, like that. That the worst is behind, just like Taliesen is.

He can believe a lot of things.

 

 


End file.
